Beekeeping and rum strip

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glenlyon
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Re: Beekeeping and rum strip

Post by glenlyon »

Its also super important to remember, bees and varroa mites form an 'unstable' relationship. In English, that means the mites will kill the bees - even if it means their own demise. However, that could change as it did with the tracheal mites - over time (decades) they formed a stable relationship with the bees and now the bees are able to live with them. Unfortunately for us - that is a function of evolution and sadly, no amount of jumping up and down, gas, chemicals or anything else, will unnaturally hurry that process.
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Re: Beekeeping and rum strip

Post by goose eye »

Save the history lesson on how bees got here son.

Varroias was in Asia an Russia for a while. How is it Mr master beekeeper that they didn't go extinct over there without gassin em. Could it be that some are more mite tolerant than others? Did you learn that in school?

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Jimy Dee
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Re: Beekeeping and rum strip

Post by Jimy Dee »

Folks
Great to see the debate rage on. Now to give ye all a good laugh. Being Irish, as a nation we are great at laughing at ourselves, so sit back and have a good giggle.

The first time I got an oxalic vapouriser I did what it said on the tin - blocked up all entrances, pushed in my thingy and opened the feed hole on the crown board. I had two other fellow local beekeepers with me to see how it got on. We duly connected the vapouriser on my battery and waited. Nothing happened. We waited some more -nothing happened. We were fast coming to the conclusion that this was another new fandango, utterly fictional and a load of twat. One of the boys had a great idea - some one should stick their nose into the feed hole in the crown board and give a good sniff to see if anything was happening and to see if there was any smell from this oxalic acid. Being the man with the gizmo I duly stepped up to the mark, put my head down and took a good whiff of the start of the white stuff that was jut appearing as my head went down towards the feed hole. I took a good lung full and almost calved. It knocked me for 6. The boys were laughing their hearts out as I was coughing my guts up and during this time the white smoke came billowing out. Then it attacked all of us. The two boys stopped laughing immediately and started coughing themselves, and we all made a speedy retreat. It is one experience I will not forget. It is lethal tack.

Thanks for the steer on the formic acid. Good to see some governments have their heads pulled out and actually do something useful for its (beekeeping) citizens.

I cannot get over there are some parts of the first world that do not have varroa. Well done and as was said previously - fight tooth and nail to keep these bastards at bay. I got into beekeeping here in Ireland when there was no varroa. It was simple beekeeping. At that time the debate raged here in Ireland as to whether or not we should import bees. Imagine debating that. To me as a teenager it was a no brainer - stop all importation and keep it at bay. The inevitable happened, bees were allowed to be imported and varroa came into our island. The brain boggles as to the breed of retard that could not see the blatantly obvious thing not to import.

Organic or not?? I agree with treatment, but there is a town hall in a local neighbouring parish and there have been bees high up in the roof for the last 10 to 15 years - a feral colony. I have collected swarms off this every year and all I can say is that they are the strongest hives in my apiary. This hive in the parish hall roof is untouched by mans hand and survive and thrive. I dont know how or why. I suppose we all live in hope that some day a varroa resistant strain will arrive.

I am personally pissed off not to have vapourised my bees last Christmas. It wont happen next Christmas.
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Re: Beekeeping and rum strip

Post by goose eye »

When I was a pollinator. I was gassin. Problem is
When you have mites down here it's in the summer.
Don't no if it changed but you couldn't put it on hives hotter than 90. That's june- the end of september. So you try other things. You make do.
I went to school to. Down at ncstate they got some smart folks . Went for queen breedin an rearin. How to take seamen and a queen and instrumental insemenanation. Before that we flooded the dca with drones of bee we wanted.
You see in a bee yard there is some place the queens an drones go to party. Might be in the yard or real close by. You can see them at times flyin.
One ole boy said he tied a string to a queen leg and let her fly. Don't know if that true or not. A lot of things folks say can't be me I've seen.
Heard it won't possible to have two queen live in the same hive for a season. Both layin both walkin over each other. Why I ain't got a clue but I had it in my hive.

Like i said you can have 2 beekeepers and you'll have 3 opinions. When you reach a point when you think you know everything your ears and mind turnoff an that ain't ever good

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Jimy Dee
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Re: Beekeeping and rum strip

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Gents, i am disgusted typing this. I got a honey bee sting in the neck friday evening and normally i would think nothing about it normally, but my whole body went nuts - serious rash and great itch all over. My wife is a doctor so she gave me strong antihistamines and steriods and monitored me to see did i need adrenaline. She asked me not to go beekeeping again without she being at home. Reactions are expected to get worse. I am totally disgusted. Beekeeping, distilling, veg gardening and horses are my hobbies. Beekeeping being my longest interest since i was a teenager. I am debating whether to risk it with one or two hives - fully suited or booted or to give it up. I have 3 kids to rear and dont fancy dying from anaphylactic shock from a sting. Sickened !

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Re: Beekeeping and rum strip

Post by yakattack »

Get urself 2 epipens. Regardless if you keep bees past this point a sting can happen outside doing anything. It's worth it for the oh shit I just got stung moment when you're not near anyone.

Sorry to hear about that bud, trust me it's not fun
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Re: Beekeeping and rum strip

Post by goose eye »

Yup bout time to hang it up. Had a ole boy that use to help that had the one to many sting. We had epipen. Problem with them is they use to say keep in a cool place. Middle of summer in cab of truck kills em. Lucky we knew the signs and got him to the city. Used albuterol an benadryl to get him there .

Ain't never seen a bee suit that is stingproof that you could wear for any amount of time in the summer.

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glenlyon
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Re: Beekeeping and rum strip

Post by glenlyon »

Hey Jimmy,

Sorry to take so long to get back to the topic - but a series of events took over my time - a lot of which was beekeeping. We're in the swarm season these days...

Your bee sting reaction story is a constant source of unease - one never knows when something could go wrong. One thing in the back yard - but, imagine if that happened in some distant out-yard, kilometers away from help. Hmmm, yikes.

I do work bare handed and I do get stung often - I like to think it helps, but that's probably simply wilful blindness.

Anyway - the bees are looking good this year although the spring weather has been a bit iffy. Today, I was teaching a small class of 8 year old's from the local elementary school about bees. Give 'em a few drones to play with and they're happy as clams.

They think beekeepers are cool.
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Re: Beekeeping and rum strip

Post by Jimy Dee »

Glen
We are having a really good year here in Ireland. We are after the driest April and May in something like 80 years, and the bees are buzzing. I took a strong antihistamine today and suited and booted with double gloves and went down and inspected my bees and they are doing fine. Added 2 supers to 2 different hives, but I have not done any swarm control so they will prob all swarm. Nature needs all the feral hives it can get these years. I know alot of judgmental beekeepers get their nickers in a twist over this but I am a firm believer in feral hives being probably our best bet for the development of a strain to learn to live with varroa. I have a really wicket hive that I am just sick of, they chase you 50 meters from the apiary, so I decided to pinch the queen this year. I drifted all the bees into a different hive and I will do it a second time by moving the wicket hive around the apiary, and then I will dive in and replace her with queen cells from a better hive. I am probably a bit stupid for doing it but if I get a sting through the glove and react badly then I will give them up - very reluctantly. You are lucky you can work glove-less.
Our year starts off with tree honey, starting with blackthorn, then sycamore and chestnut and now white thorn. I never remember a year where the bees have been able to get a crop from all these trees/bushes in the one year. We are coming into the summer floral honey now, mainly white clover and briar. These will continue till Aug/Sept and then there is essentially very little until the ivy in Oct/Nov which can be a very heavy cropper.
What flora do you bees work ?
Jim
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Re: Beekeeping and rum strip

Post by Truckinbutch »

I'm puttin my money on Gooseye and how we handle bees where I live . This other feller ain't gainin much traction with me .
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